The Henry Box School

I feel compelled to express my deep disappointment with Henry Box School following my children’s attendance over the past two years.

As a parent, I have repeatedly faced discrimination, a lack of support, and a refusal to listen to my concerns about my children’s daily struggles and educational needs. Rather than working with me to support their development, the school has appeared to take sides against me, in part because I am a foreign parent.

One of my greatest concerns has been my children’s poor attendance. They have missed significant portions of their education because their mother has not sent them to school regularly. I have raised this issue many times, making clear that by law my children are entitled to a proper education. Despite this, the school has consistently ignored my requests for help. Instead of addressing the seriousness of the situation, it has appeared to support the mother’s actions, leaving my children without the education they are entitled to.

Even more concerning, there have been occasions when my children were released from school through back exits to assist their mother in avoiding compliance with our Child Arrangement Order. This directly interfered with my legal right to see my children and undermined a binding court agreement. When I confronted the school about this, my concerns were dismissed.

As a result, my children’s attendance has remained below 50% for the past two years, with no meaningful intervention from the school. This lack of action has contributed to me losing contact with my children for over a year.

Furthermore, whenever I have made suggestions or requests regarding my children, the school has first consulted their mother and then acted solely on her position. My requests have been disregarded, and in several cases, the school has done the exact opposite of what I proposed, apparently on the basis of her approval.

To make matters worse, the school continues to call me asking if I am seeing my children, even though staff are fully aware of the situation. When I explain, instead of offering support, they appear to work with the mother in ways that use the situation against me.

On top of all this, there are ongoing issues of vaping, smoking, and drug use around the school premises. Staff are aware of this, yet no serious or effective measures appear to have been taken to address it. This raises further concerns about safeguarding and the school’s duty to provide a safe learning environment.

I deeply regret ever enrolling my children at Henry Box School. Based on my experience, I cannot recommend this school to any parent. The education system here has failed my children, discriminated against me, ignored legal responsibilities, and contributed to the separation of a father from his children.

Kind regards,
A disappointed, frustrated, and deeply concerned father

Do not enrol your child in this school if they are quiet / quiet and autistic, or genuinely just different to the average person. Was bullied the whole way through my school years here for not talking much and looking and being different, and teachers never did anything. Bullies and people who caused trouble were always praised and teachers treated them as best friends. The unchecked behaviour of students here have left me with issues I now have to work through now my education is over - including my inability to have stayed in sixth form due to the high anxiety getting made fun of everyday had given me (getting kicked out due to my low attendance and provided with no work around before it got to that point). I will forever be hateful for how this school deals with bullying and quiet children in and out of the classroom. Examples I have experienced in the classroom: a large lump of glue from a glue stick was thrown into my hair, when I told a teacher in hopes of getting my seating moved away from there, I was told “boys will be boys”. No one was spoken to about this after. Another time, I was put into a seating plan next to a boy who would scribble all over my pages while I was writing, and would constant kick and shove my chair legs to push me away from the table. I would be made fun of for responding, and the teacher also never did anything about this. These type of things were a constant in my school life, and therefore I advise parents to think about how their child would cope with the negative school life here before enrolling them. I was a higher prior attaining student before this school (the students AND the teachers) burnt me out.

It’s awful. As a year 8 student im constantly bullied and harassed and the school doesn’t do anything and most teachers are horrible and pick on students and give them punishments for no reason there’s only 1-5 good teachers in the entire school.

absolutely rubbish teachers are so rude and don’t help student support don’t deal with anything they are rubbish and they also have a stupid late policy if you are 1 min late for two lessons you have to make an hr after school and more than that it is stupid and something needs to be done people also get put in isolation for the stupidest things ever and no teacher understands the kids mental health and all they do is shout at the children

very unfair, discrimination, handles bullying wrong, rude and disrespectful staff